Anatomy & Character Sculpture - Exercises

25. 8 .21 - 8. 10 .21  (week 1 - week 7)

Sajiya Mir (0340836)

Anatomy & Character Sculpture

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Exercises

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Instructions

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Exercise 

Head Studies

For the head studies, we had to construct ahead and a skull in Zbrush, but before that, we had to study the part of the skull and the facial muscles using the books provided by Mr. Kannan.

Fig 1.0 Study of the skull and facial muscles

Fig 1.1 Skull Construction

Fig 1.2 Head Construction 1 

Fig 1.3 Head Construction 2

Muscle Studies

For the muscles study, we had learned about the muscles present in the arms, legs, and chest for both males and females. We didn't have to do a very detailed study but we were asked to at least know the major muscles present. Once we were done with that we had to apply this knowledge of muscles into our poses sketches. 

Fig 1.4 Muscles Study

Fig 1.5 Muscle Study 2

Finally, we had to construct a full body in Zbrush; I started with blocking out the character's basic shapes using circles and cylinders, then I applied dynamesh, merged all the shapes, and sculpted the major muscles. 

Fig 1.6 Body Blockup

Fig 1.7 Man Body Construction

Hand Studies

Fig 1.8 Hand Study

Fig 1.9 Hand Blockout

Fig 2.0 Hand Construction

Posture Studies

For our exercise, we were asked to look at several different postures of people sitting, standing, dancing to learn more about the body proportions and block out the overall shapes of the body.

Fig 2.1 Posture Study

Other Practices

While learning how to use the software Zbrush and experimenting with the many brushes available, I constructed a random character to explore what different brushes performed. Later, I used an image reference to create a Pikachu sculpture.

 

Fig 2.2 Random Character Practice 

Fig 2.3 Pikachu Construction Practice 

Final Outcome

Fig 2.4 Final Exercise - PDF

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Feedback

 
[Week 4]:

• Compile all the drawings into a PDF.
• The skull goes in too far, try to look at more references for the jaw and the nose.
• Apply dynamesh to the structure
• For the posture studies the pelvic is a bit off, try to get the volumes of the shoulder blades.
• When constructing don do it all in one go make the parts separately then later combine.

 
[Week 5]:

• The muscles are almost there.
• For the feet drawn in triangles and squares, the same can be done for the hands.
• The deltoids in the muscle study break in the middle and the triceps overlap a bit.
• For the face, the features are almost there just pay attention to the cheekbones and the eyes. the eyes should be covered by the eyelids and the cheeks are too flat.

 
[Week 6]:

• The neck is too long, just bring it down a bit.
• the face is also almost there use the move tool to make the cheekbones higher.

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Reflection 

Using ZBrush was a lot of fun, and I didn't expect to enjoy sculpting so much. Though there are still so many functions to learn, I was happy that I could pick it up quickly and build the basic shapes of the character. I am also glad Mr. Kannan allowed us to play around with ZBrush and create different characters before starting project one as this allowed us to get more comfortable with the software. When the time came to construct the character, I was able to do it quickly. 

Learning about the muscles in the body helped me understand why certain sections of arms bulged more than others. Initially, I knew that the arm was not just a straight cylinder, but now that I have learned more specifically about the deltoids and biceps, it is easier to plot which would go where.